Puzzle of the Pepper Tree Read Free Page A

sufferer in brown.
    It was eagerly accepted. Tate held it to the other’s mouth for as long as one might have counted ten, and then took a long pull at it himself.
    Phyllis eyed him hopefully, but Ralph O. Tate was used to being eyed hopefully by blondes. He reached to replace it in his pocket.
    A hail came from the rear seats, where the two young men, likewise in turtleneck sweaters, had recently been matching dimes. They held out beseeching hands.
    “How about it, chief?”
    Tate glared back at them. “You know my rule,” he barked. “No assistant of mine does any drinking on location.”
    The flask disappeared, and the Dragonfly fluttered on through a gusty sky scorned even by self-respecting sea gulls. In spite of all her bouncing, the twin motors on either wing never missed a beat. Steadily the fog-mantled coast line grew smaller behind them, and as steadily a gray-green mountain rose out of the sea far ahead. They were alone above a dappled ocean with only a grotesque and wide-winged shadow dancing across the waves to keep them company.
    Phyllis rested her chin on the back of her seat and turned both of her gray-green eyes full on Mr. Ralph O. Tate. Even if she had missed on sharing a drink with him, she had succeeded in breaking the ice, and she was resolved not to let it close over again.
    “Oh, Mr. Tate,” she broke in upon his reverie in a voice a little desperately bright and pleasant—“Oh, Mr. Tate, it seems to be getting quieter now, don’t you think?”
    “It was!” Tate grunted inhospitably.
    Phyllis blinked at that one, but before she had decided upon which retort not to voice, there sounded another plaintive wail from behind them.
    The man in the brown sport outfit croaked something, in a voice halfway between a choke and a gasp. All of the well-fed, massaged plumpness had been drained from his face, leaving only wide-open eyes and mouth. Whatever temporary respite he had gained through a gulp of Tate’s liquor was gone, and in spite of the fact that the plane had subsided to a gentle rocking, he fought to rise against his straps.
    “I’m dying!” he gasped. Above the roar of the twin motors his voice came clear and frightened. “I’m dying—I don’t want to die!”
    The other passengers were all turning toward him again, feeling the real chill of the panic which possessed him. Fear can be as contagious as smallpox, and it moves more quickly.
    “I’m dying—get me down!”
    There is an ironclad rule on every airline that in cases of real or imagined danger the spare pilot takes a seat with the passengers, to reassure them with his own calm acceptance of whatever the situation may be. French didn’t need to have Chick motion him back into the cabin before this whining nuisance got the women hysterical.
    He brushed past Phyllis and dropped into the vacant seat. Leaning across the aisle, he placed his hand on the shoulder of the man who thought he was dying.
    “You’re all right,” said French cheerily. “Just quiet down now. Why, I’ve been flying ten years, and never died yet.”
    The other passengers were smiling now, all tension gone. The frightened man murmured something, lost in the roar of the motors.
    “We’re coming up to the landing,” French assured him. “Have you down in a jiffy, and you’ll forget that we struck this bumpy air. Just lean back and relax.”
    The other leaned back, but he did not relax. He still seemed to have something to say. French drowned him out with good-natured reassurances.
    “Want the container? No? Chew some gum, it helps.”
    The man in brown was already chewing gum. His hands moved waveringly toward his face and then dropped to the arms of the leather seat. Phyllis saw that his lips and mouth were almost white. But he was quiet now, staring at the freckled ears of the man in front of him.
    “It won’t be long now,” French told him comfortingly.
    The plane coasted down on so sharp an angle that Phyllis felt her vanity case slide from